


buried alive

by josiebelladonna



Series: now it's dark [8]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom
Genre: Anxiety, Bad Decisions, Be Careful What You Wish For, Betrayal, Clocks, Curses, Gen, Haunting, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, It's Hard and Nobody Understands, Mortality, Near Death Experiences, References to Depression, What Do You Mean This Isn't Therapeutic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna
Summary: what would you do, and how would you react, if you found you only had three days to live?and the curse came from beyond the grave?
Series: now it's dark [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519889





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this one in two days. the second supplement to the dead of night~  
> this, as well as six feet under, are both inspired by the fact i feel alone now: i came off my hiatus in 2018 to make friends and all i got was getting jerked around and then painted as the villain. live and learn, i guess~  
> also inspired by the youtube channel unus annus (which, even though i speak latin, i keep reading as "oonus, anus")—rest in peace.
> 
>  _"a soul in tension that's learning to fly,  
>  condition grounded but determined to try.  
> can't keep my eyes from the circling skies:  
> tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i."_  
> -"learning to fly", pink floyd

My father passed when I was real young, about five years old. The last thing he did for me was get me my first drum kit—it was one of the very first memories I had with me. The one thing that brought me true joy. The drums brought me together with my band—it was like that Todd Rundgren song, if I ever came home following a horrible day, I would sit down behind the drums and hammer away.

When I broke the news to Joey that he was out, and I couldn't exactly handle it myself, I ran home and wailed away on my kit for three straight hours and then I jumped in the shower to clean myself off. It was like a cleansing of sorts. Not of Joey, but of the regret.

The four of us were on the same page, but he had been pushed out for no reason it seemed like. But we brought in John and we had a watershed moment with _Sound of White Noise_ , so at first I figured it wouldn't be... that bad?

But no. In the two years following the release of that wonderful record, the label pushed us and I found myself in a tight spot with Danny wanting to leave and our brand of metal falling by the wayside in favor of all those alternative trends we kept seeing everywhere. Losing Kurt Cobain had so much to do with it, too. For about a year, I saw music fans at our concerts wearing Nirvana shirts and they all such solemn looks on their faces. I felt it—I had my fingers on that pulse. I identified with it.

I wished we had Joey back. I wished I had my hair back. But even with us pressing forward as a quartet, I wondered where we would go following that flop.

And then I met Kristina, about a year before she passed no less.

Frank and I sort of knew her, just by her hailing from New York City and from Scott's encounters with her when they were both in school.

But I ran into her when we were sorting things out with a new independent label, or new to us rather. Our logic was simple, given everyone and their sister turned to more lesser known labels following Nirvana's demise: let's see if we can go onto something more unknown and the bottom of the barrel of the masses should give us a chance.

I had it all in my arms given the lack of a budget—the bastards couldn't even give me a briefcase to carry it all! I was walking in high winds, no less: whenever there was even a little bit of a breeze in the heart of downtown Manhattan, the street transformed itself into a wind tunnel. So I walked along the street at an angle and with the important papers cradled in my arms like I was carrying a month's worth of groceries in my arms. I didn't have my nappy black curls protecting my ears anymore: just this side of a buzz cut to where I was almost bald like Scott and I wished for a hat or something.

I recognized her waist length, nearly white blonde hair up ahead and the guitar case on her back. She was busking, even in weather like this.

She spotted me and showed me that Mona Lisa smile.

“Hi, Charlie,” her voice made me think of two wine glasses tinkling together.

I stopped before her: tendrils of that hair blew up in my face like the smooth tips of feathers.

“Kristina, right?” I asked her over the howling winds.

“The amazing Kristina, yes sir.” She never lost that smile for a second. She noted the papers in my arms and offered to take me inside the nearest cafe for a cup of coffee and to help me get myself organized. I offered to buy her a cup of coffee even though the last paycheck from our old label was complete and total chump change.

But she was kind enough to help me help her, especially when we made our way inside and she shut the door behind me against the wind.

I always knew Scott liked her, just from how he ruminated on memories of her, but there was something about the way in which she looked at me.

“Why did you have to cut off your long beautiful hair?” she asked me at one point with a little white mug of coffee in one hand: I noticed she had these long pointy deep red acrylic nails on her fingers.

“Just for a change,” I flatly told her, “you know—a new look and whatnot, given I'm right in the middle of my thirties now and we're playing around with new sounds.”

“You could've kept your hair, though,” she pointed out. “I've experimented with my sound for years and I've always kept my hair long. I know, um—what was his name, Joey?”

“Joey, yeah.”

“I know his hair's always going to be long no matter what happens with him. It might seem trivial but it's a thing for those of us who are in it for the long haul.” She gave her hair a toss and I caught a whiff of her perfume: that soft sensual perfume that wasn't overly feminine but it made me think of climbing out of a shower. Joey wore something similar but different given he was a man.

And it took me a second to realize that Joey's only a couple of years older than me, and I could envision him becoming like Ozzy, always dark and foreboding and always having that with him. Always being associated with darkness. The lucky charm and the rabbit's foot. It only made the wound within me ache even more because we needed that. As much as I loved performing and doing stuff with John, there was something missing. And it was talking to Kristina that made me wonder about things and life itself.

She offered me a ride to the label head quarters, and I gladly took it up because there was no way I wanted to walk in that blustering wind again holding a shitload of papers in my arms. She was silent the whole ride there, and even when I climbed out of the car, she showed me that soft smile again.

She never said it to me given I didn't know her status, but... I could feel it within her.

So when Dan Lilker told Scott about it, that she was gone, it was like the earth fell out from underneath me. The end of the nineties, the twentieth century, the millennium, and it all came to such an end that it weighed down on my heart and my mind like a dead weight. Everything became a heavy cold blur all around me, perhaps more so than the news of Anthony's death—Frankie still hasn't come to terms with it, either. Maybe she had something for me but never could admit to me to it because I was always so brusque. I was sure she knew about Anthony, and if she didn't, I was sure she would understand that I wasn't really looking for something at the moment.

And that was before I found out I only had three days to live out my life in the best way I knew.

I had no idea how it happened, but she had passed it on down to me. The feeling in my heart contorted into something awful, a deathly feeling. Crippling losses, one right after the other and it felt like someone had shoved me down a hill. It burned at me from the inside for something like a week. I didn't want to be in a band anymore: just go to shows and then go to bed. It was all too much. I figured that we would release this last record and that would be it for us.

Or for me, at least. Scott could get another drummer if he so wished.

I walked into that studio late one night after John had gone home and I told him I would take care of things there in the studio myself. I had no idea where we would be headed following the release of the new record, or what would happen to this little label, but I had my confidence. Great things always came out of the darkest of shadows, like a phoenix.

But it was the one thing she never told me about until it came to me in the form of a bloody kiss on the skin of my snare in the recording studio.

At first I thought it was a joke, like some person had snuck into the studio to mess with my head, and not to mention totally vandalize my drums.

But I recognized Kristina's perfume: that soft silky perfume she wore on that last day I met her. I peered through the rooms to make sure it wasn't Joey who had snuck in there, but I wondered why he would do such a thing when the last I heard, he was dire straits himself, out there in the wilderness.

There was a yellow note on the studio door. I picked it off and read: “check your head” in feminine penmanship. Using my other hand, I patted the top of my head. I even took a look down at the waist of my jeans. Nothing wrong with either, and then I peeked in through the glass window. Something was off.

I stepped inside to smell more of that perfume. I noticed a black stripe on the floor, like somebody had dropped a can of black paint. I took a second look to find a reddish tint within the black. I followed it along the floor to the back corner of the room, the site of my drum kit.

The paint spelled out the words “flesh, blood, bone, and art” on the walls all around my stool. On the stool, someone had torn the words “you will die” in the cushion. I turned to find someone had painted a deep red kiss mark on the head of my snare drum. I took a second to see it for myself, embedded inside of those creases on the lower lip:

“Three days, Charlie. Three more days and you will be gone.”

I peered around the room. I was alone, and all I could remember was I got there on foot. Frank took my car and drove off to the label head quarters for a meeting. Scott was way the hell over in California and John had gone home for the night.

I raised my gaze to the upper lip to find: “...but you must do something for me. Meet me on the Ellis Island dock.”

The dock? I was clear on the other side of town, though. I would never make it time even if I could!

But the clock was ticking—I needed to make my way there, one way or the other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"take out the stories  
>  they've put into your mind.  
> and brace for the glory  
> as you stare into the sky."_  
> -"tempest", deftones

I figured that I had my time set for me by the very second I saw those messages, so I would have to be at the dock in the middle of night three nights from then.

There was a payphone down the block, and a phone in the recording studio, but I figured what I would say to Frankie if I told him about it. I had to get my ass home, too, given it was getting too late to do anything more. I decided to get back there first so as to change out my stool for a new one. Or at least use one of those foldout chairs for the time being. It would be difficult, but I could do it.

As for that night, if I had to walk in snow, I would do so. I would walk in a foot of snow even without my boots on. I would totally do it.

And I soon found that I was going to have to walk in snow.

I locked up the studio and headed on down to the sidewalk, right as the first flurries began to fall. I only lived a few blocks away from there, but a few blocks when the snow came in Manhattan became a few miles. I pulled the collar of my coat up to my chin but it was useless.

I wished for my long hair again to protect my ears.

I remembered that corpses had long hair: once the body dies, the hair grew out along with the nails. I thought about Kristina's long dark nails and their razor sharp points.

 _No. No, Char—don't think that about her_ , I told myself as I padded down the dark sidewalk. I couldn't think that about her; I couldn't afford to, especially since every time I did think about her, I only wished for her to come back to me.

Lucky for me, I reached home before the snow picked up a full on fall out. I took off my coat and hung it up in the front foyer next to the front door. Some day I would find my way out of there and head out West like Scott. That is if that day ever came.

I had seventy two hours to live, closer to seventy one given I spent one just on the walk home. I ran my hands over my head: somewhere in that tiny tenement square was my fedora. Somewhere in there.

But I was too tired to think. Too exhausted and too fixated on the thought that I was going to die in three days for no apparent reason. There was no way I could do it. It was too cold outside and the risks were too strong for me.

Come to think of it, Kristina had a death wish. From what I saw, she always spent so much time alone and I could only figure it was because she didn't feel good enough. It would probably explain why we never really knew her, and yet we did. It would explain why Scott never really got to know her more than the girl whom he grew up with prior to forming the band with Dan. But why me, of all people? Why pass that over to me, when I already had enough on my mind as it stood?

I was the main songwriter. Sure, I owed as much of our success, the miniscule amount that we had, to Scott, Frankie, Danny, and also Joey and John. But seventy one hours, and the band would be no more if I did nothing.

It made no sense even as I leaned against the back of my small couch and rubbed my face. All the comics and cartoons I owned would have to go somewhere from that point onward, I suppose. I could give them to Frankie, but he was moving in with his girlfriend the next week. There was no way I could impose that on him and so quickly.

I fetched up a sigh and rubbed my eyes again. I needed to sleep. Like actually sleep, not lay in the ground type sleep.

I rounded the couch and untied my shoes. I leaned back against the cushions and stretched out.

I was the drummer of a metal band that, by the look of it, had passed its prime and there I was sleeping on my own couch. Our heyday remained behind us and I had no idea where Scott and Frankie would head off to with John, or Joey for that matter, following my death. There was so much, almost too much to think about and consider for myself, that it was a miracle I managed to fall asleep right there on the couch.

I awoke in the middle of the night because my feet and the tip of my nose had grown as cold as ice. I forgot to pay the power bill, which meant the furnace would not come on and the food in my fridge had a few days before it spoiled.

I sighed and reached for the throw blanket on the back of the couch. I thought for sure Kristina's death wish would take me right there as I knew I was going to freeze along with hell itself. By some other miracle, I fell back asleep.

It was the type of sleep so ephemeral that the slightest of sounds made it seem like I had just fallen asleep. I awoke to a knock on my door.

“Charlie?” I never felt more relieved to hear the sound of Jon, our manager's voice.

“Yeah?” I rubbed my eyes and sat up from the couch cushions. I made my way over to the front door.

“Charlie, are you home?” he called through the panels again.

“Yeah, yeah, hang on—” I flung it open to be greeted by a blast of frigid air and Jon himself wrapped in a parka and a heavy knit scarf.

“What's going on?” I asked him with another rub of my eyes.

“What the hell happened with the studio last night?” he demanded. He frowned at me. "Oh, my God, you look terrible."

“What? What're you talking about?” I touched my face.

“Your skin is all pale. You look like death rolled you over."

I had to stop myself from telling him to refrain using the word "death" but he kept going.

"Anyways, the whole place is a mess! You gotta clean that place up, Charlie—the label's already strapped for cash so there's no time to party.”

“Well, can I at least have a ride down that way?” I asked him. “Frankie took my car and I don't feel like walking.”

“Of course!”

How was I supposed to get to the dock? I wasn't going to make it. Too much snow and Frankie still hadn't returned with my car, either.

Kristina was pushing and prodding me from behind the grave, and she was going to kill me if I didn't find a way there. One thing remained for certain and that was I couldn't tell Scott about this. There was no way I could do such a thing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"all of your colors turn to gray;  
>  don't even matter anyway.  
> bleeding impressions where you were tied;  
> can't really say how you lost your mind."_  
> -"hollow", alice in chains

Frankie still hadn't returned with my car by the time Jon drove me to the studio to clean up the mess in there. I swore to him that it wasn't me who did it, even though the mess led up to my drum kit. But it was my job, though: I was the last one there the night before, I locked the door, and I clocked out. I was the one who did it just from a de facto stance.

But when we got to the studio parking lot, a chill ran up my spine and down my arms.

The heater was switched on, too.

Jon took the first spot near the door, and I climbed out before he even put the thing into park. I took out my keys and unlocked the door, and stepped inside where I was met with that god awful pungent smell of permanent marker, right in my face. It was like one of those mutant funks that followed someone around wherever they went, and it only concentrated throughout the night. There was something about the addition of the snow that only made it worse.

“What the hell is that?” Jon demanded as he wrinkled his nose.

“I have no idea,” I confessed as I covered my face with the collar of my jacket.

He stepped into the studio first and I followed suit to check it out for myself. Someone else already came in there and cleaned up the mess themselves.

Jon then turned to me with his eyebrows knitted together and his expression puzzled.

“Huh—guess you're off the hook, Char. When I came in here earlier, this whole place was a huge mess.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Like not even ten minutes ago. It was like a tornado hit the place.”

“Well, unless I did it sleep walking, it wasn't me,” I assured him.

“Looks like they cleaned it up and left behind their mark—let's get out of here.”

“You got any coffee on hand?” I asked him as we doubled back out of there and headed on back to his car.

“Not back at mine and Marsha's house, no.”

Once we climbed back into his warm car, Jon spoke again.

“I should also tell you this—I got a call from Scott last night. He said if this next record doesn't do the trick for us, the next best option will be to go on hiatus.”

I gaped at him.

“No!” I shrieked, which made my own ears ring.

“Yes,” he continued, nonplussed. “Charlie, _Stomp_ was an absolute flop, and it doesn't take me to tell you that, either. And you guys really have not been the same since you and Scott showed Joey the door.”

“But _Sound of White Noise_ was a good record, though,” I pointed out.

“That was more of a one off, mind you,” he pressed on. “Riding the wave of grunge prior to Cobain's suicide, absolutely. And sure, it might have proven to be a watershed moment of sorts, but every watershed dries up at some point. Every wave comes crashing down with one little slip. This next record, you better either perform for the New Millennium or just don't bother for a while.”

I fetched up a sigh as he backed out of the spot and drove me back to my place. I was only a block away from the market so I could get myself a little can of coffee. When Jon dropped me off at the curb, I turned back to his window for, what I would think to be, my last words to him.

“Jon?”

“Yes?” he said once he had rolled down the window.

“Thank you. Just—thank you.”

“For?”

“Everything. Being our manager, being with us through the bullshit the past seventeen years—” That number sounded so depressing once it left my lips. Metallica had been around as long as us, and yet they were richer than God herself and already starting families as a result, and what were we doing besides riding the wave with our thumbs up our asses?

But Jon showed me a smile.

“It's a pleasure, Charlie. Now get inside—I'm getting cold just looking at you. Eat something, too. I swear: your skin is turning green.” I backed off and headed on up to my front step. And then I realized I had left my key inside there. I was locked out. I turned around to find he had already driven off. I glanced around the empty block for any signs of life.

A tickle emerged in my throat. I coughed once, twice, four times.

"Oh, no," I muttered to myself.

I figured I might as well start walking on down to the dock, down to the pier, or whatever the hell it was that she wanted from me. Frankie still hadn't returned with my car. I was starting to think he got caught up in the snow or something.

I would have to walk down there if I had to. And I was going to. Through a foot of snow and maybe then some come the morning.

My band was on the brink of ending, and I was, too, for some reason... I couldn't help but feel like it was all my fault. I was the last person to talk to Joey. Sure, the band was Scott's brainchild but I was as important to it living, breathing, and thriving as him. And Scott was out in California at the moment, three thousand miles away. I had no means of coming in contact with him, either.

I put myself into this. I was digging my own hole. I was digging my own grave, and I was about to lie in it. And I had no idea as to how to dig myself out.

If I kept at it for the next several blocks, that is if I went for the next several miles, I could make it. But I hadn't had a bite to eat or a sip of coffee within me. I was doing it from the bare bones. Every block seemed to stretch further and further towards the ocean, and also further and further away from me.

I couldn't take the subway given I didn't have enough change. Maybe if I found some spare quarters or something like that on the sidewalk, I could probably do it. New York was a big city after all.

So big in fact that I barely reached the block which led me to Central Park when the sun hung low over the tops of the skyscrapers. I only reached Central Park! I feel like I had been here for two fucking days.

My feet ached and my knees quivered from the incoming cold. I coughed more and more. I could feel my body dying. It had snowed the night before and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, which meant the very second the sun disappeared behind the buildings was the second the mercury dropped to the ground.

And it did. I got about two blocks from Central Park, there at the intersection and the next red light, and no matter how tight I zipped up my jacket and brought the collar closer to the bottom of my jaw and my chin to substitute my hair, I could not for the life of me get warm. I was tired. I was hungry. I needed to sleep. If there was only compliment I could give to that walk, it was the fact that there wasn't a lot of traffic on the streets, which was worrying but also comforting. I didn't know what to think: between the countdown and the fact I hadn't had a bite to eat all damn day, I found my head firmly lodged into a thick fog.

“What do you want from me, Kristina?” I finally wondered aloud in a broken voice. “Really, what do you want from me? Do you want my skin? Do you want to take my life?”

I tripped on the curb and I fell right onto a snow drift. I was glad it was there because the very feel of the sidewalk could have done me in right then and there. But I still fell flat onto my stomach and I got a face and chest full of snow. I lifted my head to better breathe. I couldn't move, and it being New York City, only a few passersby walked on by to help me.

My arms quivered and quaked at the elbows as I lifted myself off of the snow drift.

I dusted myself off.

I not only was cold and chilled to the bone, but I was wet from the snow. If Kristina's death wish didn't kill me, hypothermia would take me first.

I wished for my long hair to come back as I took one step forward and another step forward. I rounded out the rest of the block to the edge of Central Park. I would have to sleep there tonight if I had to. Just call it a night and pick it up early the next morning, and hopefully find something to eat in the meantime.

Add to this, I needed to check the time.

For all I knew, I only had forty eight hours left at that point, or so I thought. I didn't check the time when I first saw those messages.

One way or the other, I was a dead man. I was lost in the heart of the very city I grew up. I might as well already be dead. It was going to happen one way or the other, but I needed more time. I needed more time to make things right.

I needed more time, but this was the only time I had.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"i was struck by lighting, walkin' down the street  
>  i was hit by something last night in my sleep  
> it's a dead man's party who could ask for more?  
> everybody's comin', leave your body at the door."_  
> -"dead man's party", oingo boingo
> 
>  _"don't waste your touch, you won't feel anything  
>  or were you sent to save me?  
> i've thought too much, you won't find anything  
> worthy of redeeming."_  
> -"the leaving song, pt. ii", afi

I awoke at some point in the middle of the night given the only thing I had covering me was my jacket. The bench was hard underneath my poor body. My face felt as cold as ice thanks to the clear black sky over me.

It literally felt like I was wasting away there on the park bench. I couldn't hardly take a deep breath without feeling the need to cough. She was killing me. She was killing me quickly.

I had become one of the many homeless people there in Central Park. How cool was that?

All I could think about was the video we did for “Who Cares Wins.” That message. That message made a full circle and fell on me, of all people. Banned from MTV where Madonna got lots of airplay...

Sepia tones...

Joey singing his heart out...

I fell back to sleep again, and that time I woke to the milky light of the sunrise over the top of the city skyline. I fell back to sleep once again.

And I woke a third time to feel the sun shining upon the crowns of the trees over my head. I was hungry. I needed coffee—my head ached from the lack of water. If nothing, I was going to go from the lack of basic necessities.

I couldn't hardly keep myself awake.

What have I done? What was happening? I wanted to crawl out from under my coat and cry to the sky those questions. What have I done to my own band?

What have I done to myself?

I rolled off of the bench onto the cold ground. I lifted myself up into a push up position: I landed on top of my jacket as well. My arms quivered at the elbows. I pushed myself back onto my knees. I was quivering and shaking like crazy. I could feel myself suffocating.

My stomach felt sunken in given I hadn't eaten anything.

I picked myself up and picked up my jacket from the ground. I shook it about a little bit to rid of the dust and anything extraneous from the back and the sleeves. I put it back on over my body to keep myself warm again.

I had no idea what the time was, but all I knew was I had to get my ass down to the dock.

I was starving. I could feel it over me. I was dying. I had more than one day left to get there, to get out of Central Park and walk block after block, but I could feel myself dying. I could feel my body dying.

The earth beckoned me with every step. The cold winter's breeze caressed the top of my head. Shadows from the trees washed over me and for a split second, I thought of predatory birds. I was dying and yet I was still hanging on for dear life. Even the driest of wells have a tiny little bit of water left behind in the deepest darkest reaches of its shaft.

I made out the shape of a kiss mark painted on the brick wall next to the other entrance of Central Park.

One more day. One more day to live and to get to the dock. But I was weak. My energy flagged behind like it was nothing.

The well was drying up, even with one day left.

That kiss mark haunted me for blocks. Every time I even so much as blinked, I could see the kiss mark on the backs of my eyelids.

I could feel it in her kiss. She kissed me and she gave me a little bit of time.

I was getting closer and closer, and yet it felt so far away with each and every step. I followed the sun with each block, or rather the sun followed me. I knew it was a sign of hope, but like every sign of hope, it came with a price and a shelf life. I shuffled along the street.

Passersby would see the shell and shadow of a man walking along the sidewalk. It was New York City, but it was my home. And it was about to become my graveyard within time. The cold earth in exchange for my bed.

Signs for the pier emerged in my view within time. I could smell the salt from the Bay. I also noticed the sun hanging low over the horizon.

I felt like I was about to collapse on the sidewalk and pass out right there. But I was willing. I was more than willing. I needed to beat the clock.

I needed it. But I needed to eat as well.

I needed to eat and I needed a cup of coffee.

I felt my knees buckle underneath me. If I didn't know better, I swore my ankles crumbled and split apart into nothing but dust. I was turning into dust.

I landed flat on the ground, weak and with nothing to go for.

My band was dying and I was dying with it.

I pressed my face against my upper arm. I could still breathe but I couldn't move. The sun won over me given it hung low over the horizon. I could feel the cold of the night washing over me again. I would fall asleep right there on the sidewalk just within several feet of the pier. I could smell it. I could hear the waves.

I was there.

But I couldn't move.

One more day. Kristina gave me one more day to live, and I could feel myself sliding down the slope even in those last glimmers of sand. I could feel her kiss on my body, too.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"take the time just to listen, when the voices screaming are much too loud;  
>  take a look in the distance, try and see it all.  
> chances are that you might find that we share a common discomfort now.  
> i feel i'm walking a fine line; tell me only if it's real."_  
> -"buried alive", avenged sevenfold
> 
>  _"yes, i am alone but then again i always was.  
>  as far back as i can tell,  
> i think maybe it's because...  
> because you were never really real to begin with.  
> i just made you up to hurt myself."_  
> -"only", nine inch nails

One more day... one more day... the grains of sand in the hourglass. It showed to me that I had one more day. Just one more day. That was all it took for me to fix it and to say goodbye to everyone. It was right within my eyes, right there. Right within my line of sight.

Alone there on the pier laying face down; I let the whispers and embraces of death come down upon me. The predatory birds swirled over my head. I was done for.

I knew how it all could slip away in a quick flash, and I knew it from a young age that it could all come to an end. I thrived in hard times. We all did. But the hard times had become too much to bear for me.

I was about to see my dad again.  
I was about to meet Kristina again. That girl with a guitar.

I was about to see her before Scott did for himself. All the secrets they told to each other were about to come forth for me as well.

I was dying.

A dead man. And all the more poignant given I was laying right there on the pier with the minutes winding down.

Everything was slipping away. Everything was going.

The first memory of my father giving me a drum kit. The memory of jamming with Frankie just mere minutes after arguing with him like he was my little brother. He was my nephew, but he felt like my kid brother more than anything.

All the movies I had ever seen. The day we all met Joey and we were floored by his voice despite how ridiculous he looked upon walking in that day. Filming our first music video. Our first records.

The day I met my first girlfriend. The day we showed Joey the door and brought in John.

 _Sound of White Noise_. This past decade. All the things I would never get to do like get married and start a family of my own.

And last but not least, the memory of Kristina rang through my mind.

But there was something she had said to me that last day I met her. She sat across the table from me with her hands wrapped around the base of her coffee mug, and she had a grim look upon her face.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked her.

She swallowed and it looked as though she was about to burst into tears right then and there.

“Kristina? What happened?”

She bowed her head a bit.

“Kristina?” I kept my voice low so only she could hear me in that coffee shop.

“Please don't tell Scott,” she began in a near whisper.

“I won't,” I vowed to her; I even set a hand atop the back of hers. “It'll be between the both of us.”

“Okay, because... I don't want him to worry about me.”

“I won't tell him. I promise.”

She swallowed again.

“I'm an orphan now,” she said, to which I gaped at her.

“Oh, God, I'm so sorry to hear that.”

She sniffled.

“I feel so alone now. This city that I moved to when I was a kid... it feels so alien to me now. And—I'm not gonna lie, I feel like I—” She got a break in her voice.

“What? What is it?”

“—like I want to die.”

The words fell upon me like a dead weight. It was a shock: she seemed so bright and sunny in the few moments when I bumped into her on the street. She had taken off her mask for me, like how she did for Scott.

“The past three days, I feel like everything is going away,” she confessed in a broken voice.

“Well,” I started as I extended my hand out to her, “—if there's anything you want to talk about, don't ever be afraid to knock on my door or call me. Never be afraid to reach out to me.”

It was right there I connected with her. I never knew my dad too well other than he was the man who put down the ground work for me to shine and drum away, and she had the split home on her end. And it was that moment, that point of touching the back of her hand with the tips of my fingers that I realized what she had done to me.

She raised my hand up to her lips...

...and she kissed the back of it.

And then suddenly, it all clicked.

She granted me her death wish, and sealed it with a kiss. She was gone and now it was my turn. She was gone and she left the pain behind for all of us to deal with, but I had inherited her wish like some fucking heir to a fortune from hell.

And now I was going. The memory of her face faded away into blackness. I was going right there, about to leave my body...

“Charlie!” Frankie's voice rang through the air. It echoed through my ears as if he stood at the top of a canyon.

“Charlie!” he shrieked. Oh, God, CHARLIE!”

Through my blurred vision, I looked up to my right to see her standing up on the pier in the form of a dark shadow. Her hair streamed behind her. Her body was cloaked in solid darkness. Death herself, coming for me.

And then Frankie emerged before me with his face twisted in fear. She vanished behind him.

“Charlie! Charlie! Shit—fucking hell—what the hell happened here—?”

I opened my mouth to speak but no sound came out. His girlfriend said something. Frankie pressed his hand to my forehead and then he gasped.

“Oh, Jesus Christ—let's get you to the hospital and then home—oh God—hey, babe, can you help here?” And then she said something.

“He's dying, babe! He's starving to death and dyin' of thirst! Let's get him out of here—!”

He and his girlfriend lifted me off of the ground and carried me to the back seat of my own car. They lay me down there and shut the door before my feet.

I had no idea if Frankie had saved me or if I had no time left. Death herself would come for all of us, but my hope was if she would come for me while things were coming back to life on my life. The only way I could tell was when I woke up the next morning, either in the hospital bed or in my own bed.

That is, if I woke up.


End file.
